Okay, I know it stings but it’s good medicine. So temper it with a little sugar and suck it up.

For those outside our city borders who still consider themselves a part of the Decatur community, this morning’s AJC features a fine instructive example of what should have happened prior to our latest Walmart dust-up at Suburban Plaza.

In short, circulating rumors of the big box giant’s arrival in Sandy Springs’ downtown mixed-use district — no development proposal, mind you, or even validated interest, just floating possibilities — got people questioning: “Hmmmmm. We have a vision for what we want that area to become. I wonder if our zoning regulations ensure that’s what we’ll get.”

Turns out they don’t, so the city proactively dropped a 90-day moratorium on land-use petitions to allow enough time to “put its ordinances in line with its land-use plan for downtown.”

Well, howzabout that. Seems so much simpler than what happened here, and that’s for some very specific reasons:

Read the rest of this entry »

Also on the docket tonight, the Decatur city commission is set to vote on an interim transitional buffer between residential and commercial properties that would increase the setback from 10 to 30 feet and decrease the height-limiting plane angle from 60 to 45 degrees.  It also transfers the authority of giving parking variances from the ZBA to the city commission.

This ordinance (along with one for new mixed use zoning) went before the planning commission a few days back and the minutes from the meeting are particularly interesting – hello concerned resident Kathy Gannon!  While the buffer ordinance was approved by the planning commission, the mixed use zoning was tabled to investigate adding a grandfather clause, increasing building heights by 4′ feet to a 54′ max in the village sub-area, and increasing the allowable retail floor area to 8,000 ft to accommodate a grocery store.